Today started off extremely early!! There was a wake up call at 515am. We all complained about it at first but we realized it was for good reason. We were heading to Masada, which is a fortress that would take quite a bit of hiking to get too. We started hiking around 8:30am I think. It made things so much cooler. By the time we had gotten to the top and had started going to different locations it had gotten extremely hot. We were very thankful to have done the hike up when it was much cooler. I must say that was the hardest physical activity I’ve done yet this trip. I was expecting it to happen more often, but thankfully it hasn’t.
Masada is the most visited site in all of Israel. It was built because Herod was paranoid as king and so he built himself fortresses, this was the 3rd fortress he built.
We spent a lot of the morning at Masada. There was a lot to look at and see. It was involved in one of the Jewish revolts, as we read in an account of the revolt by Josephus. The Romans had surrounded Masada and were building a serge ramp (which is what we hiked up, it was more like stairs rather then a ramp). Apparently though when the captain of Masada realized that they had no chance against the Romans he had everyone in the camp commit suicide. It was a sad story.
Time to hike to that tiny fortress at the top!
The rest of our group climbing up from the bottom/
I made it to the top! For those of you who know me well that's amazing :) Cause I am pretty out of shape.
These were the actual rocks that they would launch at the attackers.
This is a model of a Roman (I think) bath house.
This is the huge cable cars we had to take to get to the bottom. Why couldn't we take them on the way up??
Our second stop was supposed to be the Barkocva caves but after driving up an extremely windy and scary steep road we discovered that the rest of the road was unpassable by bus, so we turned around and stopped at a lookout place to see the caves super far away. Some of the dead sea scrolls were found in these caves.
Our third stop was Ein Feschcha. It was an oasis in the middle of the dessert right near the Dead Sea. It is in a location that is called the “rain shadow”, which means it barely gets any rain at all but there is still vegetation and that is because the water runs down from Jerusalem and gathers into springs. It takes 3 years for the water to gather from Jerusalem. According to our guide EVERY single breed of fish in the country of Israel is located in this oasis. It was really cool.
You can see references to things like this in the Bible, which I found really cool:
Ezekiel 47
The River From the Temple
1 The man brought me back to the entrance to the temple, and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar. 2 He then brought me out through the north gate and led me around the outside to the outer gate facing east, and the water was trickling from the south side.
3 As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits[a] and then led me through water that was ankle-deep. 4 He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through water that was knee-deep. He measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to the waist. 5He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that I could not cross, because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in—a river that no one could cross. 6 He asked me, “Son of man, do you see this?”
Then he led me back to the bank of the river. 7 When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river. 8 He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah,[b] where it enters the Dead Sea. When it empties into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh. 9 Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live. 10 Fishermen will stand along the shore; from En Gedi to En Eglaim there will be places for spreading nets. The fish will be of many kinds—like the fish of the Mediterranean Sea. 11 But the swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be left for salt. 12 Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.
That passage describes exactly what were looking at! It was so cool! At this point, Mark, our guide kind of branched off into a “sermon” it was really good! It really had me thinking. He is really trying to help us find some meaning behind each location, but I especially felt that here. He calls the dessert God’s classroom. God brings people to the desert to teach them things. He talked about how people can be in deserts in their lives, but they should remember that God is the living water. One thing I have learned on this trip is that water is extremely important in the desert, without water we would all die. Mark then talked about a plant called the Jericho Rose. Whenever the rose gets water it blossoms and gives out its seed pods. The thing is being in the desert, it knows it might have to wait awhile, but it does, and whenever the water comes it still blossoms. Life can be like that, you may be at a desert in your life, but you know that eventually God will bring you water, it may just take some waiting.
We then got a few minutes of reflection time. I know that it was really meaningful to me, I’m not sure about the rest of the class. Here are some more pictures:
Our last stop was the Dead Sea!! We were all pretty excited for this. I had already tried the pool at the hotel so I kind of new what to expect but I couldn’t wait to get in the water and try out the mud on my skin. We were told it was really good for it with all of the minerals.
I think that I can let some pictures do the talking for the next part of my story:
Dead Sea mud is VERY VERY ex-foliating!! It felt so amazing! No joke!
Look! I'm floating! Weirdest feeling in the world!
*For some reason not all of my pictures will load for this. But you get the idea. You will just have to wait to see the rest until I put them on facebook when I get home*
Now we are FINALLY settled into a hotel where we are staying for a week! Rather then having to move around every day. The internet is free, but it keeps going in and out. I am trying my best to update my blog! I have been typing these up each day but I can’t post them until I have internet! Hope everything at home is going great! Miss you all! J
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